And I connect to it using the rdesktop protocol that VirtualBox natively supports.

rdesktop-vrdp localhost:3389

However after my kernel was forcefully upgraded for me today, I had to also upgrade my Virtualbox installation from VirtualBox-4.1-4.1.8_75467_fedora16-1.i686.rpm to VirtualBox-4.2-4.2.6_82870_fedora16-1.i686.rpm and after doing so, found myself unable to use arrow keys, control keys, page-up, page-down, etc, in my rdesktop-vrdp VM window.

So the problem is: control/alt/arrow/etc keys not working in rdesktop-vrdp.